There is no surface radar available. My MAIN question is WHEN CAN I GET A SURFACE RADAR?

There seems to me to be NO WAY to "get in position" with no surface radar. If the warship isn't coming directly AT YOU, there's no "catching" it or getting in position.

By the time I get good sonar distances, the enemy is within 5000 yds. I get distances from sonar of like 19815 yds. But then I'll run into a ship who happens to be SEEN at 4580 and he opens fire. ??? Explain THAT.

I have to stay submerged to avoid detection and my max speed submerged is like 8 kts. At that speed there's no outpacing anyone, even merchants, to get in position. There's often not even time to get into position even if you're in range. If you plot a course and their past your current position, you stand no chance if they're speed is a measly 8kt cause I'll never catch 'em.

UGHHHHH

I've been frustrated having to settle for lone merchants who are headed right for me.

Some of the boats, it starts being installed July 1942, but progresses all the way into mid-1943, depending upon the boat. S-Boats do not get radar. It looks like October 1942 would be "average"... Also, "Visual" in the game on a clear, calm day in FotRSU might be as far away as 12.5k yards or more... I have a tendency to shy away from warships myself. Keep your head down...

There is no surface radar available. My MAIN question is WHEN CAN I GET A SURFACE RADAR?

There seems to me to be NO WAY to "get in position" with no surface radar. If the warship isn't coming directly AT YOU, there's no "catching" it or getting in position.

By the time I get good sonar distances, the enemy is within 5000 yds. I get distances from sonar of like 19815 yds. But then I'll run into a ship who happens to be SEEN at 4580 and he opens fire. ??? Explain THAT.

I have to stay submerged to avoid detection and my max speed submerged is like 8 kts. At that speed there's no outpacing anyone, even merchants, to get in position. There's often not even time to get into position even if you're in range. If you plot a course and their past your current position, you stand no chance if they're speed is a measly 8kt cause I'll never catch 'em.

UGHHHHH

I've been frustrated having to settle for lone merchants who are headed right for me.

So...When can I get a radar?

I was puzzled too that I could only get aircraft radar detection.

what I figured out, in a headesk moment, was that you aren't supposed to NEED surface radar this early in the war, as the ships are not moving that fast.

What you do instead is use your sonar passive listening station.

keep a steady heading, and as your sonar man keeps reporting the position information of the nearest ship, you can tell quite well what direction it is heading, its speed, and even the angle it is heading towards or away from you.

First, note on the tactical map (F3) where the contact information is coming from (you will get a gray or blue line being drawn towards the contact). Then just listen to the degree information your sonar info man tells you.

say he says: "contact bearing 349, moving away, slow"

then, a minute later he says"

"Contact bearing 353, moving away, slow"

from that you know several general things already:

1. the contact is moving from your left to your right
2. it is angled away from you.
3. the fact the degrees changed a decent amount between the first and second report suggests that it is moving at near right angles relative to your bow. if it was moving parallel to your course, the degree change would be less. if he said it was moving fast, then the angle would likely be much less perpendicular relative to your boat.

make sense?

the longer you let him give his reports, the clearer it will be as to where your target is, and what direction it is moving in relative to your boat.

this is very valuable for you to learn as a sub commander, given that you can't use your radar under water anyway, but your sound guy will always be there to tell you what's going on. If you want to practice the skill, I recommend doing the convoy training mission over and over again, coming at it from different speeds and angles. here you have a convoy that is always in a known position, always heading in the same direction and speed. so, you can test your ability to properly be able to figure out where it is going based on sound alone, and then check your estimates against the reality, since you really always know where it is anyway.

once you have it down, continue on with your campaign, and you will be a much more successful hunter!

cheers.

hell, in this game, if you leave off the "realistic sensors" realism feature, your sound guy will be able to give you further ranges than your radar OR visual even in daylight on a clear day!

...you DID uncheck the "realistic sensors" thing in the realism menu, yeah?

by now, you should have gotten some sailors that possess "special abilities".

one of the special abilities is called: "Perfect Pitch". find your latest save game (ONLY IN PORT!), make a copy of it, then edit the file called "ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc" with a good text editor (like notepad ++)

look at your crew names, and pick one you like that is in your conning tower.

search on his name in the file I noted above.

when you find it, go to where it lists his special abilities, and use these lines instead of what is there:

now, when you REALLY want to know exactly where everyone is within 50 miles of you, hit that ability key (you will find it listed in yellow under the "special abilities" tab (looks like a sailor's cameo). It lasts for 30 minutes, and eventually recharges after a few hours.

it's like cheating, but not. it's like you extended your visual range by double, and are omniscient too.

"No contact." even on pinging the noted bearing. Bearing updates continue for heading but nothing on distance. REALLY? You can tell me where he is and even what type of ship he is but you have NO IDEA how far away he may be?????

Seems like the distance should be automatically appended to that first notification.

when you ping a distant contact, just to the right of the ping "button" is another one, click that one, and the range will be displayed in the message box.
I use that range to plot where the target really is, and use a succession of pings to plot course, and if I noted the time for each, I can calculate speed.

I do that and sometimes it works, but too often I get the reply of "no contact"

UGHHH
"sonar contact, merchant, bearing 265, medium speed, closing."

[aim bearing and *ping*]

"no contact on that bearing"

"sonar contact, merchant, bearing 266, medium speed, closing."

[aim bearing and *ping*]

"no contact on that bearing"

.........makes me want to stand someone up in front of the deck cannon........
Eventually they DO show up so it's not a big deal I guess, but they're usually VISUALLY SPOTTED via deck crew or periscope with sonar still unable to give me a range.
Just seems like I should get more info out of sonar guys
Maybe it's lack of experience on crew????

When doing your "aiming" of the sonar, remember that you're "hearing" the sound of the prop in the water, so when you go to "ping", you have to lead the target. Not as much as when duck hunting, but the farther away they are, the more you have to lead. Also, the light on the sonar station lights green when you're pointed at something "live". This video isn't a really good example, but you can see the light lit, then go dim near the beginning of this:

That is a test mission, and there is a moving ship next to a near-stationary submarine. I'm trying to "ping" the other submarine (and naturally, I missed... ), but you can see that sonar light lit, and then dimmed... btw, the moving ship is going right-to-left... The rest of the video is rather entertaining, if you wanna see me blow a hole in my own sub...

Some of the boats, it starts being installed July 1942, but progresses all the way into mid-1943, depending upon the boat. S-Boats do not get radar. It looks like October 1942 would be "average"... Also, "Visual" in the game on a clear, calm day in FotRSU might be as far away as 12.5k yards or more... I have a tendency to shy away from warships myself. Keep your head down...

This is what I've been using for my US boats (backed up with some+/- evidence)
CV's, BB's, CA's & CL's were top priority targets.

Just FYI.
Boats do not start the war with surface search radar. although a lot of them do start with air search radar (depending on what mods you are running, and what boat you are in, your mileage may vary here)

If I remember correctly, most boats become eligible for the surface radar in June of 42. So head back to your port just before then.

You are right. Once you get the surface radar you can change from being an ambush predator, to being a pure hunter.

Surface search radar is what made the us submarine fleet so deadly and effective in the Pacific theatre in ww2

Good hunting mate ,😀

__________________

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Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force

If the only tool you have is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail

also, I was looking in the files, and it looks like some boats never do get surface radar as an upgrade package.

for example, Tambor does not appear to have an upgrade package that includes surface radar; only air.

I don't know if that limits it from getting surface radar or not in the long term, but my Tambor is in late April 1942 and has not been offered surface radar yet.

could be you need to switch boats?

You should be able to buy it with Renown, probably in early - mid 1942.

I know for a fact that the TAMBOR class boats had both Air Search and Surface SJ and later SJ Improved radar.
Example: USS Tuna (SS-203) - one of my favorite boats.

Happy Hunting!

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" Bless those who serve beneath the deep,Through lonely hours their vigil keep.May peace their mission ever be,Protect each one we ask of thee.Bless those at home who wait and pray,For their return by night and day."

Guy buys a subsim game, never played one before, so the first thing he does is download one of the "super mods" which are specifically designed to make the game more difficult. Then plays the game on the highest difficulty setting.

Better would be to spend a month or two playing the game on an easy setting with all the training wheels, then after learning the basics try the more advanced stuff.

"There seems to me to be NO WAY to "get in position" with no surface radar. If the warship isn't coming directly AT YOU, there's no "catching" it or getting in position."

That sentence tells me you're a rookie. Standard maneuver for WWII subs was the "end-around". On first contact you need to figure out the target's course and speed, then maneuver your boat to get ahead of him without being detected, submerge on or near his track and wait for him to come into range. You don't head for where he IS, you head for where he's GOING TO on the surface at full speed, staying just outside detection range.

That's why it's best to start with the basic game on easy level - mods like Trigger Maru, RSRD, or FOTRSU disable a lot of the training wheels. The basic game with map contact updates displays the target's course and a detection range circle, and has a lot of plotting tools to figure out the best interception course.